MAR 3 In the months after Katrina, some of the most gut-wrenching and real work in journalism came from Chris Rose, who was a columnist for the Picayune at the time. His first-person work bared his soul and his struggles, and evolved into a best-selling book and a Pulitzer. What happened to him after that is just as gut-wrenching, this post on the Columbia Journalism Review tells us.

MAR 3 This is the kind of story that makes your blood run cold. WWL reports on how a guy who served a lawsuit on a police officer was facing charges he attacked the officer, with cops and attorneys making statements against him - until cell phone video surfaces showing he didn't do anything of the sort. Yikes.

MAR 3 Blogger Tom Aswell gives us the skinny on what went down at that crazy conservative love fest, the recent CPAC meeting. Interestingly, Bobby Jindal's rewriting of his own creation story (he ain't an anchor baby in this one) isn't even the tops on the crazy scale, Tom says. Yikes.

MAR 3 Here's a commentary on that stupid dress situation taking over the interwebs. It's pretty hilarious, because it is speculating as to what the biggest bolviators among the conservative blowhards would have to say about it, if it were a political issue. There's even a prediction of what Louisiana's own bloviating blowhard, Scott McKay, would say.

MAR 3 This post on The Lens takes a look at the way that we continue to separate Black History from the rest of American history by relegating it's "celebration" to the shortest month of the year. Black history is American history, but only if it is honestly incorporated, Eugene Thomas writes.

MAR 3 Here's a post on NOLA Defender about the Lenten tradition of Fish Frys in New Orleans. There's also some interesting information from the Catholic Church about the "rules" of Lent - if you feel like getting into that increasingly touchy subject of whether or not our fried shrimp or boiled crawfish Fridays qualify as abstention or not.

MAR 2 Blogger Crazy Crawfish brings us up to date on the way that some school systems across the state are dealing with parents and kids who try to opt-out of standardized testing. It ain't pretty - but given the absolute obsession with tests that permeates the "reform" movement, that's not a surprise, is it?

MAR 2 Cyril Vetter pens this guest post on Bob Mann's blog about Bobby Jindal, the state of our state, and taxes. For all his Ivy League wonk hype, Bobby Jindal "reeks of 1950s Donaldsonville," Vetter writes. It's a must-read.

MAR 2 This (racy) post on the Red Shtick pokes fun at a recent article in another Baton Rouge based mag about the top six "catches" in the Capital City. Be warned, it's not for the easily offended, but then some might find the original, meat-market type of article, offensive as well.